Niccolo Rising (68 page)

Felix said, “I have already told your steward. I am Felix de Charetty from Bruges. I called expecting to find my mother here.”

“Your mother!” said his overwhelmed kinsman. “Now here is a knot! You are Felix de Charetty – of course, there is a relationship somewhere by marriage. You are right. And you expected to find your mother in this house?”

“She isn’t here?” Felix said. As well as hot, he was growing angry. The man might be rich and might be, on the face of it, friendly, but he was still standing inside the courtyard, one ringed hand laid on the open gate, and Felix de Charetty was still standing at the entrance, with his men and his mounts.

“Never!” said M. de Fleury. “Nor sent word she was coming, poor lady. No doubt she needs help of some sort.”

“Then,” said Felix, “you have made a mistake. She is in no need of help. She was merely travelling south with her … She was merely proposing to call on you.”

“My dear young man,” said Jaak de Fleury. The tone he used was so changed that Felix, forgetting his pique, simply stared at him.

“My dear young man, if you have spent some days at Genappe – is it possible that you have not heard from Bruges? That you did not call at Bruges before setting off south? That, in fact, you have not heard the terrible, terrible news?”

“What?” said Felix. At either elbow his servants moved forward. All three stared like imbeciles at the prosperous figure before them.

“My poor, poor boy,” said Jaak de Fleury. “The Charetty business no
longer exists. It burned to ashes last month, on the eve of the White Bear tournament.”

They got invited inside then. The servants and the horses and baggage disappeared. His heart thudding, Felix followed Jaak de Fleury up stairs and through passages, ramming into him when the merchant stopped to answer questions, and getting left behind when he lost himself thinking up more to ask.

The dear lady his mother was alive, and his sisters. No one had been killed. The house, the yard, the stock had all gone. A tragedy. A tragedy when the lady was, by all accounts, already deeply in debt because of some incautious commitments. And M. de Fleury had heard rumours of another kind, although he did not propose to offend the lady’s son by relating them. About a marriage to a certain scullion. Although nonsense, these tales injured the reputation of a company, along with that of its officers. “But of course,” said Jaak de Fleury, entering a parlour at last and signing his bemused visitor to a settle, “there is no Charetty company now, alas. So rumours have no importance. Some wine?”

Felix said, “I’ll have to get back.”

“Yes, of course. But after some wine, and a rest. My wife will bring it. Esota! Esota! Here is Felix de Charetty, whose business burned down in Bruges the other day. My wife,” said the merchant, turning tenderly back to Felix, “loved your mother with devotion. Here she is.”

His spirit in Bruges, Felix stood and remained mindlessly standing. There entered the room a cake of a woman, pale as a pudding packed into a gut of stretched silk, with a head of dyed hair rolled in ribbons. She trod towards him, lifted two draped and powdery arms, and encased him. His nose sank into flesh, found a vacuum, and plugged it. He freed himself with a gasp.

“Felix!” said Esota Fleury, her hands on his shoulders. “Motherless child!”

Renewed fright in his eyes, Felix turned his head. Jaak de Fleury’s smile was soothing. “Esota! The boy will think his mother dead, and she is unharmed. Ruined, but unharmed.”

For such a large face, Esota’s eyes were bright but meagre. They remained fixed on the boy. Sliding one hand down to his, she led him to the settle and seated herself at his side, his fingers clasped in both her palms. She said, “But motherless still! That wretched marriage, forced on an innocent widow. How can you forgive us? Your mother raped by a knave from our kitchens!”

Jaak de Fleury turned from where, instead of his wife, he was preparing wine for his guest. He said, “But that is merely rumour, Esota. We will not speak of it.”

“It’s true,” said Felix.

They stared at him. After a moment he realised it, and pulled himself together. He drew a deep breath. He said, “Not rape. If that’s the rumour, I’d be obliged if you would deny it. Nicholas and my mother
recently drew up an instrument of marriage purely as a business arrangement. Despite his base beginnings he has, my mother thinks, great business acumen and can help her manage the company. This contract gives him proper authority.”

The woman released his hands. “Nicholas!” she said, amused.

“I suppose it is his given name,” said the merchant thoughtfully. “We, of course, think of him as he was known in the kitchens. Such a change of fortune can happen to few boys. A turn for business, you say? And so he owns it jointly now with your mother?”

“No. He gets nothing but a salary. Got. There won’t be much in it for him now,” Felix said. “There’s nothing to own.”

“Except debts,” said Jaak de Fleury. He sat down, glass in hand, and gazed at it thoughtfully. “Unless there is money we know nothing of? Business acumen, you were saying.”

“There’s property,” Felix said. “There’s Louvain. There are other investments. Something could be done. We’ll put our heads together.”

“You don’t think there is money somewhere? No cash? No investments? I only asked,” said Jaak de Fleury, “because in cases of arson, it is usual for someone to benefit, and here apparently no one does.”

“Arson?” said Felix. His stomach, which had begun to settle, started to disturb him again. His hair, which had been rolled up tightly that morning, had begun to come down in the heat. He said, “Someone
started
the fire?”

“So they say,” said the merchant. “Not your mother or yourself, it goes without saying. Someone with a grievance against their new young master, perhaps. What else could it be? Although I must say I have been wondering … Ah. I hear voices below. That will be your stepfather now.”

Felix didn’t even repeat the word. He merely gazed at his tormentor.

Jaak de Fleury smiled. “Nicholas. He
is
your stepfather, you say? You didn’t know then that he was in Geneva, calling on Francesco Neri of the Medici? I wondered if my poor house was to receive his next call. And after you arrived, dear boy, I sent to Francesco’s to make quite sure Nicholas made his way here. You wouldn’t want to miss him. And I must admit. I must admit,” the merchant repeated, rising and setting his glass on a table, “I am full of curiosity. Why, after such a disaster, is he not in Bruges, helping his wife in her hour of need with this great business acumen we have heard of? What can bring him to Geneva? And where, I wonder, does he plan to go when he leaves? However generous his managerial wages, there is a limit, I imagine, to what they will fund. How interesting it all is.”

He remained standing as the door opened and Felix, too, got to his feet. Jaak de Fleury smiled down at his wife. “Esota, my dear,” he said. “You remember Claes, who is now Felix’s stepfather? For the sake of Felix, I want you to receive him in your parlour. He will not presume. I’m sure of it.”

The tall man in the doorway moved inside and it was, Felix saw, Nicholas and not Claes. Nicholas with the brown of the open air on his skin and not the pale sweat of the dyeshops. Nicholas dressed not in Charetty blue but stout brown and green, with a sleeveless jacket over his doublet and serviceable riding boots and a leather cross-belt with a sword in a plain scabbard. Nicholas, with a brimmed beretta pulled over the damply crimped edges of his dust-coloured hair, and whose open eyes scanned the room, observed the woman and stopped at Felix. In them, Felix read a number of expressions. The last one, plain to see, was concern.

Felix said, “You’re not surprised?”

Nicholas said, “Not if you came straight here from Genappe. Your mother is still in Bruges.”

“So I hear,” Felix said. “The house burned down. So what are you doing here?”

“Collecting debts. And selling cloth,” Nicholas said. He didn’t imitate anyone, or pull a face, or make a joke or even grin. He spoke, now, the way he’d spoken ever since his mother had started taking him into the business. He spoke like all the dreary merchants he and Felix and Julius (sometimes) used to poke fun at.

“Collecting debts? Who from?” Felix said. He had forgotten Jaak de Fleury and his wife, one standing, one seated behind him.

“From Thibault and Jaak de Fleury, I hope,” Nicholas said.

Behind, Jaak de Fleury spoke. “My dear Claes! I can see the necessity. But I fear we owe your mistress nothing.”

Nicholas looked past Felix. He said, “I had a word with your steward, M. de Fleury, on my way in. He is asking your clerk to prepare a list of what is owing. For what you cannot settle immediately, I shall require a notarised document establishing the debt. I have also brought, monsieur, the cloth you ordered. Payment for this, too, would be appreciated by the demoiselle. You will, I am sure, be anxious to help her in everyway.”

Jaak de Fleury smiled. The bosses of his cheekbones shone: towards his wife, his wine-pouring servant, and to the two young men before him. “Come,” he said. “Let us be seated. These are not matters to be dealt with hastily. For one thing, money is tight in Geneva just now. Indeed, I am surprised that you brought your cloth so far south. I should have thought the Bruges Fair would have brought you a better price. It depends, of course, what use you have for the money. Or indeed, the promissory notes.”

Nicholas said, “I should have thought that was obvious. The business has to be rebuilt.”

Jaak de Fleury said, “Of course. So you are returning to Bruges with whatever money you have collected – from me and, no doubt, the Medici. And the debts still outstanding? Do you return for these too?”

Nicholas said, “Monsieur, you will be told where and how to fulfil your obligations.”

“I hear,” said Jaak de Fleury, “that you favour Venice. Is that where the cloth money will go?”

Felix said, “It will go to Bruges. If there is money owing us now, I will take it.”

“Without a guard?” said Jaak de Fleury. “Your skilful Nicholas and his men at arms won’t be with you. You talked of returning to Bruges, but he has said nothing of it. I am told by the Medici that, on the contrary, he is on his way south to Milan. After that, who is to say where he, and the money, will find themselves?”

Nicholas stirred, but made no effort to sit. He suddenly did pull a face, of the kind Felix remembered when he was making up his mind, against his will, about something. Nicholas said, “Did he tell you I started that fire?”

“Did you?” said Felix. It seemed likely that the merchant was right. Nicholas had married his mother, cashed what he could of their assets and lodged it somewhere, and then destroyed both the business and the evidence. He would hardly admit as much if he meant to come back to Bruges. But, confident of escape, he might just confess it. In which case Felix would kill him.

Nicholas said, “No. There are other candidates. Your mother knows of them. Since I can’t prove it, you’d better go straight back to Bruges with the money. Take my escort: they’re Bruges men. I’ll hire others.”

“You won’t,” said Felix. “You’re coming back to Bruges as well. Now. Tied into your saddle if need be. M. de Fleury will help me, I’m sure.”

Jaak de Fleury got up, and with deliberation strolled to the door, where he turned, blocking the exit. “Why, gladly,” he said.

Nicholas looked sadly at him. “That’s awkward,” he said.

“That’s stopped your tricks, you mean,” said Felix angrily.

“No,” said Nicholas. “Of course, it would be quite easy to leave, but you can’t really collect the debts and the documents without me. That is, I am sure M. de Fleury’s officers are beyond suspicion, but I do know what is due, and how to check it. Perhaps I could be taken, under heavy chains, to where the ledgers are kept? Or could the clerk bring them?”

He sounded solemn, as he had before, but there was something about his face Felix distrusted. Felix hesitated. If Nicholas was here to collect money, then no one, it was true, could extract it better than he could. After that, all he had to do was take it into his, Felix’s, care and march Nicholas back, under guard, to his mother. Then they’d see about these mysterious caches in Venice. Venice!

In the end, clerks and ledgers were brought to the parlour, and a table carried in at which Nicholas seated himself, opposite an amused Jaak de Fleury, with his officers standing about him. During the half hour that followed the merchant continued to show amusement, although at
times clearly bored as polite question followed polite question, and page after page was consulted so that the finger of Nicholas could trace, with gentle clarity, the proofs of his argument. Or rather, his discourse. Nicholas entered into no arguments. The objections, such as they were, came from de Fleury’s officials, looking from time to time at their master when a point appeared to be lost.

When that happened, the merchant allowed the concession without interfering. The final list of money, as a result, owed by Thibault and Jaak de Fleury to the Charetty family was double the steward’s first estimate, and there was even some silver in earnest of settlement. It was put in a box with the documents, which had been signed and witnessed by public notary. Felix, biting his nails, watched the box being locked. Then Nicholas turned to him. “Felix. You wanted to take the box back to Bruges. I’ll come with you. There is the box, and there are the keys. The sooner we get back, the better.”

The clown’s eyes were holding his. Felix hesitated. He longed to get away from the fat, scented hands of the woman and the dark, amused gaze of her husband. They said Nicholas had meant to cross into Italy. Perhaps he still did. Once on the road, there was nothing to prevent him from wresting the money from Felix and turning back south. He had men at arms.

Apparently Nicholas thought all that was behind him. That, somehow, he had induced Felix to trust him. Smiling, Nicholas said, “You wanted to tie me into my saddle, I seem to remember. M. de Fleury would certainly help. He might even send some men with you, if you don’t want to trust mine. But perhaps you feel that isn’t quite necessary.”